Using Trello for the Chapman University Web Team Editorial Calendar

Trello is a collaboration tool that organizes your projects into boards. In one glance, Trello tells you what’s being worked on, who’s working on what, and where something is in a process. – Trello.com

The Chapman University Web Team Editorial Calendar uses Trello to organize and track the progress of stories that will be published on Chapman Blogs. Each school, college, department, and blog have their own Trello Board where stakeholders can see stories ideas and stories in progress. Each Trello Board has lists and cards. See the below information about the Web Team Editorial Calendar Boards on Trello.

Board

A place to keep track of story information for your school/college/department. Contact the Interactive Marketing Specialist for access to your team’s Trello Board. You can view your board in list view (standard) or calendar view (click “Calendar” in the upper right corner).

Cards

Represent tasks and ideas, such as story ideas. There’s no limit to the number of cards you can add to a board.

Title: Using a naming convention will help stakeholders quickly distinguish ideas. For example, you could use “Story:” or “Social Post:”or “Event:” before the title of the story to signal the format the story will take. “Story” means a blog post will be written. “Social Post” means this content will only need a post on social media, a blog post is not necessary. “Event” would leave the option open for a blog post and or a social post based on the event

Edit the description: Add a more detailed description of the event or story. This would include a fleshed out idea for the story, event information, names of potential interviewees, relevant links, etc.

Add Comments: Your team can post updates or helpful information as comments to this card. This can limit emails about stories and help keep everything in one central location. Everybody wants fewer emails, right?

Add Members to this card who would benefit from following the progress of the story. For example, if your supervisor wants to know that status of a story, you can add them to this card and they will receive notifications as updates are made

Add Labels to help your team and the Editorial Team understand what is expected for this card. For example, is this a Facebook Live idea or event pictures that will be shared on social media?

Add a Checklist of items to track the steps needed and completed in the process of writing this story. This is especially helpful when multiple people are working on a story or need to see what steps have been taken. For example, one of the checklist items could be “interview alumni from Launch Labs” or “have a colleague proofread post”

Add a Due Date so this story will pull on the calendar view

Add Attachments, such as imagery as needed

Lists

A workflow where cards are moved across lists from start to finish. Below are the Lists on your Editorial Board.

Story Ideas: Create a new card for story ideas and events that warrant a blog post. This can include student or alumni success stories, campus-wide events, programs that the University would like to highlight, events or stories for social media, etc.

In Progress: Once someone is responsible for writing the blog post, move the card to “In Progress.” Updates can be added as comments

Published: Move the card to this list when the blog post is published and live on Chapman Blogs. Please include the published blog post URL in the card description. This list provides content for the Social Media list

Social Media: Once a card is in this list it is scheduled or ready for sharing on your social media accounts. You can either add more items to the Checklist or create Labels to remind you to schedule or share on Facebook, Twitter and or Instagram

DONE: After the story has been appropriately shared, move the card to this list. This list is a great resource to view stories your team has worked on over the past year, as well as a resource for content you can repurpose and share again. There are many stories that warrant multiple shares on social media, not just the initial push. This list is a simplified way to view the content you have “in your back pocket”

Move cards across lists to show progress by “drag and drop” or within the card (Actions > Move > select desired list > Move).

Important: In order for your story to pull on the calendar view, you need to assign a “due date” to your card in Trello.